Subtitles and Transcript

Saki Mafundikwa

0:11
I moved back home 15 years agoafter a 20-year stay in the United States,and Africa called me back.And I founded my country's firstgraphic design and new media college.And I called it the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts.The idea, the dream, was really for a sort of Bauhaussort of school where new ideas were interrogatedand investigated,the creation of a new visual languagebased on the African creative heritage.We offer a two-year diplomato talented students who have successfully completedtheir high school education.And typography's a very important part of the curriculumand we encourage our students to look inward for influence.Here's a poster designed by one of the studentsunder the theme "Education is a right."Some logos designed by my students.

1:19
Africa has had a long tradition of writing,but this is not such a well-known fact,and I wrote the book "Afrikan Alphabets" to address that.The different types of writing in Africa,first was proto-writing,as illustrated by Nsibidi,which is the writing system of a secret societyof the Ejagham people in southern Nigeria.So it's a special-interest writing system.The Akan of people of Ghana and [Cote d'Ivoire]developed Adinkra symbols some 400 years ago,and these are proverbs, historical sayings,objects, animals, plants,and my favorite Adinkra systemis the first one at the top on the left.It's called Sankofa.It means, "Return and get it." Learn from the past.This pictograph by the Jokwe people of Angolatells the story of the creation of the world.At the top is God, at the bottom is man, mankind,and on the left is the sun, on the right is the moon.All the paths lead to and from God.These secret societies of the Yoruba, Kongoand Palo religionsin Nigeria, Congo and Angola respectively,developed this intricate writing systemwhich is alive and well today in the New Worldin Cuba, Brazil and Trinidad and Haiti.

2:58
In the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo,in the Ituri society,the men pound out a cloth out of a special tree,and the women, who are also the praise singers,paint interweaving patternsthat are the same in structureas the polyphonic structures that they use in their singing --a sort of a musical score, if you may.In South Africa, Ndebele womenuse these symbols and other geometric patternsto paint their homes in bright colors,and the Zulu women use the symbolsin the beads that they weaveinto bracelets and necklaces.

3:43
Ethiopia has had the longest tradition of writing,with the Ethiopic script that was developedin the fourth century A.D.and is used to write Amharic,which is spoken by over 24 million people.King Ibrahim Njoya of the Bamum Kingdom of Cameroondeveloped Shü-mom at the age of 25.Shü-mom is a writing system.It's a syllabary. It's not exactly an alphabet.And here we see three stages of developmentthat it went through in 30 years.The Vai people of Liberia had a long tradition of literacybefore their first contact with Europeans in the 1800s.It's a syllabary and reads from left to right.Next door, in Sierra Leone, the Mendealso developed a syllabary,but theirs reads from right to left.

4:42
Africa has had a long tradition of design,a well-defined design sensibility,but the problem in Africa has been that,especially today, designers in Africastruggle with all forms of designbecause they are more apt to look outwardfor influence and inspiration.The creative spirit in Africa, the creative tradition,is as potent as it has always been,if only designers could look within.This Ethiopic cross illustrateswhat Dr. Ron Eglash has established:that Africa has a lot to contribute to computingand mathematics through their intuitive grasp of fractals.

5:29
Africans of antiquity created civilization,and their monuments, which still stand today,are a true testimony of their greatness.Most probably, one of humanity's greatest achievementsis the invention of the alphabet,and that has been attributed to Mesopotamiawith their invention of cuneiform in 1600 BC,followed by hieroglyphics in Egypt,and that story has been cast in stone as historical fact.That is, until 1998,when one Yale professor John Coleman Darnelldiscovered these inscriptions in the Thebes deserton the limestone cliffs in western Egypt,and these have been dated at between 1800 and 1900 B.C.,centuries before Mesopotamia.Called Wadi el-Holbecause of the place that they were discovered,these inscriptions -- research is still going on,a few of them have been deciphered,but there is consensus among scholarsthat this is really humanity's first alphabet.Over here, you see a paleographic chartthat shows what has been deciphered so far,starting with the letter A, "ālep," at the top,and "bêt," in the middle, and so forth.It is time that students of design in Africaread the works of titans like Cheikh Anta Diop,Senegal's Cheikh Anta Diop,whose seminal work on Egypt is vindicatedby this discovery.

7:18
The last word goes to the great Jamaican leaderMarcus Mosiah Garveyand the Akan people of Ghanawith their Adinkra symbol Sankofa,which encourages us to go to the pastso as to inform our presentand build on a future for us and our children.It is also time that designers in Africastop looking outside.They've been looking outward for a long time,yet what they were looking forhas been right there within grasp, right within them.